333: How Can Early Childhood Leaders Shift Their Focus from Problems to Positives?

In this episode of Childcare Conversations, Kate and Carrie chat about a leadership habit every early childhood director should try: focusing on the positives! They explain why our brains naturally spot problems first, but how shifting to notice and celebrate what’s going well can boost morale and quality. 

Carrie shares her “Caught in the Act” strategy, intentionally catching staff doing great things and giving real-time praise. It’s a friendly, practical conversation full of tips you can use right away to create a happier, more supportive program. Give it a listen and try catching someone being awesome today! 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Childcare Conversations with Kate and Carrie. Most directors spend their day looking for problems. The crying child, the classroom that feels chaotic, the teacher who forgot something. Carrie, how can we help folks understand what I would consider one of the basic leadership habits and why maybe they need to start changing their mindset about their staff?

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Well, I don't know that they're actively looking for all the things that are going wrong, but they are noticing all the things that are going wrong because that's what's rising to their attention. Because a crying child is going to get your attention. And a grumpy parent is going to get your attention. That's their whole job as being a grumpy parent is to get in your face and get your attention. And when you walk down the hall and everything's going the way it's supposed to, you don't notice it. That's the whole point of the way your brain works. Your brain looks for novelty. What is not the way it's supposed to be? And so you notice when something's not the way it's supposed to be.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

This through real quick, because I want, I just want to touch on something. So if we think about the fact that a lot of directors end up as directors because they were really, really good teachers, right? And they got promoted. But even as a teacher, what we are often talked about and trained in in workshop is things related to licensing visits, how to make your parents happy, safety issues, and compliance. So we aren't necessarily taught at any point in time, even personally or professionally, probably to look for the positives, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:54

The the We are when we go to workshops on classroom management. In classroom management workshops, they'll tell us that you need to catch that child doing things appropriately five times for every time you give them negative criticism. So, but that's the only workshop I know where we hear about that. And the thing is Yeah, go ahead. I was just gonna say, like that whole how many times people hear a negative mode uh information over the course of a day. There's lots of research on it for kids, and I'm sure there's research on it for adults, but I've never heard that research in a training or read it in a book. I'm sure it's out there, but I don't, I don't know that I've heard it or seen it anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

Actually, I have, and I'll have to go pull it because it was something I used in like one workshop and only one workshop. There, you know, it that's where I said it's that mindset thing. Sometimes when we think about staff trainings that our staff have been to or that we've been to, we don't look at how can we apply this outside of that setting. So, how can we apply it outside of the classroom? Or in this example, how can we apply this in our real life, um, in our other roles? Because if you learn that as an early learning leader, as an early learning teacher, chances are that would be helpful for you to use in your day, you know, in your day life, right? In your outside of work life. Because if we practice doing that, saying five nice things for every negative thing, if imagine how different our whole life would be if we used that theory in um relationships with significant others, relationships with our own children, our peers. Um, because, you know, if we don't say something nice, we're probably going to get defensive every time somebody says something negative to us. And after a while, you're not gonna be like, well, why should I even try?

SPEAKER_02 3:55

I mean, I think that's something that the owner struggles with, the director struggles with, the curriculum coordinator, like, and we know that there are teachers who struggle with it, right? So this maybe this is a human thing. It is so like I think you probably get like an endorphin hit when you see something that needs to be corrected, and you can say, hey, fix that thing, you know, tuck in your tail, little duck, you know, that kind of I get a payoff for that. I caught somebody in a spelling mistake. I caught somebody who didn't do this, that, or the other thing. I think there's probably something chemically happening in our brain that is a payoff that every four-year-old feels when they tattle, right? And the four this is why the four-year, I mean, that's not the only reason the four-year-old tattles, but the thing is if you are looking for people messing up, you're gonna find it. Because we have that reticular activation, what's the third word in that? Uh, the reticular activation system. So if you tell your brain to go look for pink Cadillacs every time you get in a car, you're gonna see a pink Cadillac. But if you put in your brain to go look for Suzuki motorcycles every time you go driving, you're probably gonna see the motorcycles. It's not that there's more motorcycles on the motorcycle day, it's that your brain's actively looking for it.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

Well, so then let's talk this through. Let's talk about why it's important to actively look for positive um interactions happening in our program. Because we know that the teacher then feels seen, right? The director will reinforce what quality looks like. I mean, we often talk about we want programs to be high quality. That doesn't mean that we only have to ever acknowledge the negatives, right? And then third, but your teachers might be if you said five nice things to them every day, right? I mean, when you talk about learning to be some some coaching strategies as an owner, I mean, this is a coaching tool, right? Like if you say, I noticed you did this, but now it's I noticed you did this and it's a positive thing, right? Like we do a lot of the I noticed this, but hardly ever do we stop and actually do the I notice this when it's positive. Carrie, you have a great solution for walkthroughs and walk-around observations. Will you share that with folks? Because I really think that that habit, I wish that everybody had that habit. And I learned the habit from you, but it was a mind shift, mind shift switch. Well, I mean, but I think it would do it really, really well.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

Yeah, I mean, I just w made up little slips of paper that were called caught in the act, and I would take a certain number of them with me when I did my morning walkthrough or my afternoon walkthrough. And so I would have, you know, I would be like, okay, today is Monday. I'm gonna try to do three caught in the acts while I'm walking around because I'm more likely to see some stuff that's not entirely what I want on a Monday. So I'm gonna give myself a low goal, three for this morning. But then maybe on you know, Wednesday, I have lots of excitement. Or here's the thing: if I was in a bad mood on a Wednesday, then I would give myself a high number of caught in the acts to give out. And I can't go back to the office until I've given out that many caught in the acts. And it's okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

I love this. I love that. When you're in a bad mood, I don't think I ever realized that part. So that when you were in a bad mood, you actually challenged yourself to go find more positives. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

Because it it changes my mental state. So I want to go find all the people doing cool stuff. And there are days when I can pass them all out and it takes me like seven minutes. And there's other days when I'm walking around for 45 minutes trying to find enough positive things that are happening in the school. But by having those and having that system of I'm gonna try to do it almost every day, the staff look forward to you walking into their space.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Well, that's better than showing up with a clipboard and everybody freaks out, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:42

Well, the the caught-in-the-acts sheets are on my clipboard. So, um, but or they might be in my jacket pocket. But it's what am I looking for? Am I looking for the person who's not doing the nose to name? Um, which is my version of whatever other people call it, the checking to make sure they have this the right children going through a doorway. So I call that nose to name. Um, I could be spending the day knowing that we're having issues with people not having, not being able to answer licensing immediately. How many kids do you have? Who's the oldest? Who's the youngest? Okay, so licensing is telling us that's an issue. I got two ways to address that. One, I can try to catch every teacher who's doing it wrong by just watching the video and going, she didn't do it, he didn't do it, she didn't do it, and then writing it up at the end of the day. I saw four times you went through a doorway and you were not counting on your checklist. Or I can do the other thing and go, six times today, you did check your nose to name list. Which one is gonna get me more compliance? For most humans, catching them doing it correctly is going to get more reaction. You do have some people who are gonna be like, yeah, uh-huh, whatever. And if you get that kind of response, then you know that that person needs to occasionally be caught doing things incorrectly because their default network is, of course I'm doing it right. And so they have to be occasionally brought up short because they're not doing it right. But most people want to hear that whole I did a good job.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

If you think so, if you just like if you have to, I mean, if it was me, I'd probably have to make a list to go with my list, like a list of examples, especially if this is new to you. So if you're listening to this and you're thinking, yeah, that makes sense, but it's gonna be a new habit for you to start. Um, I'm gonna suggest you start by making a list of five or six positive things you're looking for, because you don't want them all to be exactly the same, right? You don't want to tell every teacher that what they did was the nose to name, and that's the only positive thing you can come up with all day because your brain is so wired for the negatives. So think about the teachers who help children solve problems. Think about the teachers who help calm that child down. Um, I think those are the things that you have that habit.

SPEAKER_02 11:25

Huh? How about the teacher who you can see them getting upset and being reactive to a behavior in the classroom, and they chose to step out of that situation and get themselves re-emotionally regulated before working with that child. That's a thing I think you should 100% recognize. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

Absolutely. That's important. I always thing is just starting the habit and starting it today, and starting it with I'm gonna make the goal one staff person a day. I am going to find catching good and to tell them that I saw them doing good, and make sure that over the course of the week that you get everybody. And then add two a day, right? Because I think that it would be so I I don't think. I know that your staff would be in better moods, which means your parents are gonna be in better moods, which means your ki children are gonna be in better moods. And it all starts by you as the director, as the owner, as the leader of the program, leading with positivity instead of your nose in a checklist or with a report of things that need to change. So, you know, it starts by paying attention and it starts by paying attention and looking for um ways to word things, like you said, six times you did this instead of the four times you did it wrong. I love that example, Karen.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

Well, I mean, there's that saying, what gets measured gets improved. So what are the things you want to improve? Another thing that I think is really great to do with the caught in the act is I saw you try a new thing. And whether they that new thing succeeded or failed, the fact that they tried a new thing. And I think acknowledging you tried a new thing, it went completely off the rails. But you tried it, and this is how you recovered. This is how you pulled it back together. I think that is a super effective way to continue to grow good leaders.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

I mean, even just grow happy humans. Yeah. Because I think that's what, like the one thing that I'm really getting out of this conversation is that there are so many things like this that we learn in workshops as a teacher to apply in our classroom. And we forget as teachers, because a lot of times as trainers and even as as professionals, we forget to remind you that you can go take this at home and practice it at home. And you can take this to your PTA meeting and practice it with the grown-ups in your life. Like, this isn't just something that you do with the kids in your life or the kids in your classroom. It's you can pull this across all the way across. And I just think that's really, really important. So, Carrie, somebody's listening right now and they're like, I still don't get it. They're still struggling with the caught in the act concept, the finding something positive, or they like it, but they're not sure how they're teaching because that's not how they generally are, and they're sure their teachers are gonna like, I don't know, think they're crazy. How can they create some accountability? Like, what could somebody do to help them make sure they actually did it? Like, what's a what's an accountability tip that might work here?

SPEAKER_02 14:55

A real easy one, and one that um parents sometimes are told when they're the um they're in parenting classes is to put five um rubber bands or five scrunchies or something on the one arm. And every time they say a positive thing, they move the scrunchie to the other arm. And then when they say a negative thing, the scrunchie has to go back on the other arm. So the goal is to get all the scrunchies from one arm to the other arm over the room.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

You probably stay there all day, right? Like it's not like, oh, look, I moved them all and it was 10 a.m. Yeah, and then by noon, who the hell knows what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_02 15:32

And so that's a that's a pretty straightforward thing. And it's in you could do it again, working to improve your relationship with one individual. So you might have someone on the team that you're constantly having some conflict with, or you guys are just not communicating effectively. Doing something like that will really help, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Well, you know, you the way you said that, I just got thinking about, you know, so many of us have people that we work with that we're comfortable with, and maybe sometimes too comfortable. And then there are the people who we avoid. Um, but in both of those scenarios, if we get too comfortable, we also forget to do just what I would call good human, good human stuff, right? Like how to be nice to other humans. I mean, I feel like sometimes we need to all, even the grown-ups, need to go back and watch some reruns of Mr. Rogers and, you know, won't you be my neighbor? Well, some people may be like, I don't want to be your neighbor.

SPEAKER_02 16:29

But absolutely. Well, I know we could talk about this for another 20 minutes. Um, but I want, you know, we this is one that I think really keeping it to a short time so that you can now go out, go do it right now. Go find somebody who's doing something well. Give them, you know, you can do it with words, you can do it with a note, you can give it, you know, however you want to do it, but go catch people in the act of doing a good job. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

When's the last time you caught somebody being good?

SPEAKER_02 17:02

Okay, so I want you to s text the show about how that went, who was the first person you caught, what did you catch them doing, and we will talk to you in a few days.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

Thanks for tuning in. We love bringing you real talk and fresh insight from the world of early childhood education. Be sure to follow us on social media to stay connected and catch all of the latest episodes. And if you're planning a conference, training, or special event, Kate and Carrie would love to speak to your audience. You can learn more about their keynote sessions and workshops at kateandcary.com. If you learned something today, share the show and leave us a review below. We'll see you next time on Childcare Conversations.